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dusk has already hit, the sun quickening to fall in the summer horizon that would be barely discernible from the winter, if tubbo was in a different place, when footsteps resound against the stone brick of the ‘cookie’ outpost.
tubbo does not move from where he’s sitting, knowing exactly who is coming, recognizing how the steps sound as if they come from someone who never wants to be heard. not in a spy sense, not how tubbo’s learned to walk on the balls of his feet or the tips of his toes and tell where wooden planks creak the loudest in every space he’s in. just... in the sense of withdrawal, maybe. tubbo isn’t always sure.
either way, ranboo comes to sit down, leaving a space between the two of them just in case. he doesn’t ask why tubbo is next to the jukebox, playing nothing, staring out at las nevadas. he doesn’t ask why tubbo has the faint scent of beets and gunpowder. he doesn’t ask anything.
in his mind, tubbo thinks i wonder if you’ve ever heard your favorite disk and how come you always have that cacao bean scent, how are you so lovely, how are you so lovely.
he never verbalizes that.
instead, he shifts to sit closer, resting his head against ranboo’s shoulder with a light bonk sound, keenly aware of the horns on his head and making sure they’re mostly covered by thick locks of hair. ranboo, in turn, exhales a fond laugh through his nose, and wraps an arm around tubbo’s waist.
by the time they’re fully settled, the small smile on ranboo’s face is gone again, and he asks, “what are you thinking?”
a lot of things, he would like to say. i’m thinking about michael at home, and our little family, and how you followed me all the way here when we had better places to stay-- how come you always follow me? i’m thinking about our wedding bands, and we never had a wedding, did we, would you ever want one? i’m thinking about how things can be so peaceful but not be at the same time. i’m thinking about how i could never make you happy.
“las nevadas is still growing,” he says instead.
ranboo hums, instinctively scooting a bit closer to the other. “yeah. so i’ve seen.” there’s a small pause, before he continues, “tommy’s been with wilbur, still, though i haven’t seen wilbur around. they’re building something to spite quackity, apparently. it’s as you said, those two seem to be more antagonistic towards las nevadas than we are.”
part of tubbo is a little sad, that tommy is still at wilbur’s side, when he’s heard tommy tell him countless times how much he hates being around the other. but tubbo is always a little sad, anyway, when it comes to him.
“yeah, we don’t really pose much threat,” tubbo thinks aloud. he still needs to find that missing nuke from snowchester. “we’ll be fine, ranboo. if anything happens, we’re a good team to fight ‘em off. quackity’s never been good at pvp, and i’m not sure how many people from there are going to stick by big q’s side, when all’s said and done.”
ranboo looks at him, eyes a little wider. “you think they’ll betray him?”
tubbo shrugs, nudging ranboo’s chest with his shoulder. “big q’s never been good at keeping people around for long.”
the two had never shared that in common. tubbo always had his constants-- tommy, then, and ranboo now-- but quackity couldn’t hold a single consistent thing for longer than a few months. tubbo wonders how lonely that must be, sometimes, if he should try harder to reach out to quackity, to talk to him, or even just to see if he’s okay.
then he thinks about how quackity threatened him and ranboo, and how committal he can be to plans, if not people.
and he stops feeling sorry, for the most part.
tubbo’s husband pulls him closer, which may be due to the sudden chill of the night, but maybe more so from the conversation. tubbo knows how the other gets. it’s an honor, to know that.
ranboo sighs, and he rests his cheek against tubbo’s hair. “we’ll be okay, i think,” he comforts, in a way that tubbo knows is entirely for himself. it’s okay, though. ranboo is allowed to be selfish, sometimes.
he rarely is.
maybe that’s what makes all tubbo’s thoughts from before bubble up. all the rambles streaming through his head, all the questions he wants to ask. that he can ask, in the night, knowing that the other may not remember. and he shouldn’t take advantage of his partner’s memory loss, but some things are better worth forgetting and that doesn’t excuse anything but-- tubbo doesn’t know. he doesn’t.
so he asks something else, kind of. “why did you follow me here?”
ranboo tenses, just slightly. he stays quiet for a moment, which tubbo takes as him trying to figure out what the question is asking-- the two have excellent communication sometimes, but they have their own gaps, some of them a thousand times bigger than anything they could ever create together. he comes to some revelation, though, and he answers tentatively, “... i didn’t, though. i just trident-ed my way up the water-lava contraption. like i always do.”
“not that, big guy,” tubbo shuts his eyes as he says it. “like, why did you follow me here? in the first place?”
another silence. he almost wishes he played music. “you’re my husband, tubbo. of course i’d follow.”
“that doesn’t have to extend to here,” tubbo says, and in his head he means that doesn’t have to matter at all. there’s a fear, in knowing that the universe allowed someone like ranboo to love someone like him. that there’s a kind of unfairness in that.
people talk about ranboo’s inherent luck a lot. tubbo’s seen the surplus encounters with eleven diamond ore veins, and he’s heard fairly exciting tales about the things that just… happen, to the other.
but tubbo doesn’t think ranboo can be all that lucky, if he’s here with tubbo in the first place.
when he speaks next, his voice is softer than usual, and the emotion in it is betrayed fairly easily. “... do you not want me to be here?”
“it’s not that,” tubbo clarifies. “of course it’s not that. i just mean…” he hesitates. then takes a deep breath, shuts his eyes tighter, and forces himself to carry on. “this cookie outpost didn’t have to involve you. same with the shit between me and las nevadas. you could have just stayed back in snowchester, moved into that mansion of ours. let me handle all the conflict and shit and just… been at peace.”
“do you think i would have left you to handle this all alone?” ranboo asks.
tubbo isn’t sure how to answer that.
“... i know you wouldn’t have done that, but i don’t know why. why you always stay, or follow, or- or whatever it is.” tubbo exhales slowly. loudly, in the silence of the outpost. “me and tommy used to be like that, but usually it’s because both of us got into shit together. so we’d back each other up, because we’re equals-” until tubbo exiled him like the coward he was, “-but you? you’re different.”
“how so?”
sometimes, he wishes he could just wave his hands in the air and the other would understand. that works with certain things. this, though, he knows he has to explain. but he really, really hates doing that. explaining, that is. “because you’re you. and you’re all selfless and shit, and you don’t- you don’t like conflict. you don’t do bad things intentionally- ”
“you don’t, either,” ranboo cuts him off.
tubbo moves away, just a bit, so he can meet his eyes. it’s a hard task to do, seeing as ranboo struggles to hold eye contact with him for longer than a few minutes (the longest they’ve ever maintained it was a long time ago, when ranboo was on one knee and tubbo was struggling to catch his breath) and tubbo has grown out bangs. but they manage.
“i’ve done bad things, ranboo.” his eyes sting, just a little. “i’ve done a lot of bad things.”
“but you’ve always done them thinking they were for the best,” and ranboo makes tubbo sound so selfless, when he should know that tubbo isn’t, that from the very second the two were married and tubbo accepted that proposal, he started a streak of selfishness that would never end.
he could list so many times in which ranboo is wrong, but he can’t find a single way to articulate it, and can’t catch a thought for long enough to try. so he just shakes his head a little and changes the topic.
“still, you’re kind, and you’re a good husband and father, and- and i’m the one that ran away to form a military outpost. i’m the one who refused to take down those walls. i’m the one who threatened my old friend.”
ranboo suddenly reaches out to grab both of tubbo’s hands, holding them in his. the size difference is almost laughable, as is the textural distinction-- ranboo’s are large and slender, scaly yet soft, and tubbo’s are small and chubby, calloused yet warm. tubbo could never get sick of holding the other’s hands. he very rarely does.
when ranboo takes them into his, he looks at tubbo in the eyes, again, or some approximation of such. and his voice is soft and low, almost soothing, when he says, “but i’m the one who followed you, established the cover of a cookie outpost, and put those signs defending it,” all just to cover my ass, “i also fought for those walls to stay up. maybe less than you did, but i didn’t like their ugly mess of cobblestone, either,” because you knew how walls make me feel both like i’m soaring and dying, “and i gave them a warning that i’ll have to act if they hurt you, you know. it wasn’t meant to be a threat, but, i think they took it as one,” how could you love something like me this much? “you’re a better person than you think you are, tubbo. i’m not here because i chose the side against las nevadas, i’m here because i chose you. i’m always going to follow you, until i die or until you don’t want me to. and if it’s the latter, that’s fine- it is- but if it’s the former, well, i have a stack of totems and more incoming.” he laughs, and tubbo’s eyes sting more. “i’m not leaving, tubbo. promise. i’m here until you don’t want me to be.”
there’s a hollowness in his voice, carved out from the emotion threatening to consume him, when tubbo says, “you’re going to kill yourself, doing that.”
“i’d like to think i’m a pretty cautious person,” ranboo responds, voice still gentle. “and i know you’d never hurt me, tubbo.”
“how can you know?” he wishes he could speak in the same tone as ranboo, not in a numbness that grows louder and louder than it needs to be. that he could be as quiet as the other without feeling like he’s drowning himself. that he could do anything without feeling like he’s dying. “i hurt tommy back then, didn’t i? and just about everybody since. you’re not- there’s nothing that makes you special to them, ranboo-” there are a thousand things that do, “so i could- i could hurt you just the same. i could.”
his chest is heaving with breaths he thought he had been taking.
ranboo’s hands don’t leave his, and the other looks at him with something soft in his eyes, like how he looks at his son every lazy day they have together, or how he looks at his wedding ring when he thinks nobody is watching.
and quietly, like a confession of equal magnitude, ranboo replies, “i’m willing to take that chance.”
immediately, tubbo crumbles. he lets go of ranboo’s hands, or maybe the other does first, to fall against his chest, tucking his face into the other’s shoulder and silently sitting in his arms. his breath hitches, over and over, but he blinks the tears out of his eyes, committed to his own promise to never let anybody see him cry.
he wishes he could have that vulnerability with ranboo. he doesn’t think he ever will. and he doesn’t think the other will, either, seeing as those tear scars just keep reopening and tubbo never catches the exact moment it does.
but, ranboo doesn’t seem to mind. ranboo just holds him, running his fingers through tubbo’s hair and staying quiet. the selfish part of tubbo wonders if ranboo would still be this quiet if tubbo came to him in choking sobs, screaming into his chest and shattering entirely. if this is a matter of not wanting to break past the hatefully needed melancholy, or if ranboo never quite knows what to say to the other.
tubbo wouldn’t know what to say to himself, if he were in ranboo’s shoes, anyway.
“do you regret it?” tubbo asks, voice faltering under the weight of everything ranboo just said that tubbo is still defying, in some way that’s second nature. “marrying an ex-president who needs walls to feel safe and can never meet you equally, that is?”
“we are equals, tubbo,” ranboo counters.
i’m afraid i can’t love you as much as you love me, he thinks. or maybe i’ve got everything wrong.
“and,” ranboo continues, “i don’t regret it at all, actually. i really don’t.”
“ how ?” he wants to scream, but he holds himself back. he isn’t ready to see, to test his hypothesis. he just wants to feel at peace with something that was never built to do that.
and ranboo, in the simplest phrase that does the most complicated things to tubbo, replies, “because i love you.”
i love you so much it scares me, because i didn’t know i could do that. if you ran off somewhere i would follow you too, but you never tell me where you go and i’m not a good enough husband to find you. if some war happens, i can promise that i would protect you, because that’s the only kind thing i can offer you. i wonder if you would love the me that must exist, somewhere, when i’m not fighting. because i know i would love the you that comes out when you aren’t battling yourself and my own stubbornness. i love you. and i’ll never be able to say that enough, so there’s no point in saying it at all, is there?
tubbo slumps against ranboo, still in his arms, and doesn’t reply.
eventually, ranboo falls asleep, softly exhaling through his nose as the moon travels across the sky outside. someone leaves las nevadas, and tubbo is pretty sure it’s foolish, to start up work on one of the buildings. a creeper blows something up in the far distance. all the cacao beans grow, and tubbo can imagine ranboo picking them clean in the morning and giving tubbo one of his cookies, a small smile on his face that reminds the two of them that they’re just children pretending to be men.
and tubbo doesn’t sleep. just shuts his eyes and thinks of the day that all this luck runs dry.
tubbo can’t quit thinking about that. just like how wilbur can’t quit cigarettes, and tommy can’t quit fighting, and quackity can’t quit quitting.
and just like how ranboo can’t quit him. no matter how hard he tries. because everyone on this server has something they love more than anything, to the point it becomes an addiction.
ranboo’s addiction is protecting tubbo, no matter what.
and tubbo’s is planning for the day that he finally stops.